Milbank: Republicans are incorrect about political correctness

The notion of political correctness became popular on college campuses a quarter-century ago but has recently grown into the mother of all straw men. Once a pejorative term applied to liberals’ determination not to offend any ethnic or other identity group, it now is used lazily by some conservatives to label everything classified under “that with which I disagree.”

When CNN’s John Berman last week asked Rick Santorum about Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from entering the country, Santorum employed the familiar evasive maneuver. “Republicans are sick and tired of the political correctness that we can’t talk about this,” he said. “You can’t say the word ‘Muslim.’ ”

It wasn’t clear which officer in the P.C. Police told Santorum he couldn’t say “Muslim.” Presumably it was the same one who gave Chris Christie this straw man: “Some people believe that borders have become outdated,” the New Jersey governor said. “They don’t believe in nation-states. They believe in a post-American world. … We have to speak out against it even when it becomes politically incorrect to do so.”

CNN’s Jake Tapper exposed the intellectual laziness in the label when Cruz said “political correctness” prevented U.S. officials from seeing radical Facebook postings by one of the San Bernardino shooters. Tapper noted the posting in question was under a pseudonym and was in a private message. “How is that political correctness and not just privacy issues?” he asked.

Cruz changed the subject.

Epidemic of hyperbole

For Trump, the politically correct label has become a tic.

His praise of Putin? “I’m not going to be politically correct.” His response to the British prime minister’s criticism? “You want to be so politically correct all the time.” And if you don’t support his (false) allegation that thousands of Muslims celebrated the World Trade Center collapse: “It might be not politically correct for you to talk about it.”

That tic is contagious.

Marco Rubio thinks the “radical left” has found “a clever, politically correct way to advocate Israel’s destruction.” Carly Fiorina alleges that “our government has become inept, sometimes because it is politically correct.” Jeb Bush laments the “politically correct kind of curriculum.”

And Carson, who has nearly equaled Trump in the politically correct primary, says of enhanced interrogation techniques, “There’s no such thing as political correctness when you’re fighting an enemy who wants to destroy you.”

Voters, told repeatedly that political correctness jeopardizes their way of life, are alarmed. “We’re tired of political correctness,” one Trump voter said in a focus group conducted for CBS. “I think we’re being burdened with it. I think it’s making us weaker as a country globally.”

He just doesn’t know what it is.